Dave Yetton: Blow Out Your Candles

Herald rating: * * * *

Former JPS Experience songwriter-bassist Yetton's solo recording project the Stereo Bus grew into a fully fledged band that released two fine albums of softcore guitar pop in the late 90s.

Now the Bus is permanently back at the depot, though many of its members are among Yetton's helpers on this languid effort. If it's his old mates helping out, it's a family affair in the songwriting.

Fatherhood is the focus of some of its tenderest tunes, such as opener That Bump Has Fallen Off, the lullaby sighs of Head in The Clouds and Catch Your Fall and an ode to domestic agoraphobia Fallen in Love with the Weekend.

It can veer towards cutesy - especially Baby Steps, a rare song of rock urges, albeit ones resembling Billy Corgan fronting the Wiggles. But the rest is a compelling, dreamy affair, at best on the title track or the glacial psychedelic Three Feet Til Golden.

It makes for an album with its head in the stars - but its feet padding around the house in slippers so as to not wake the kids.

Label: FMR